The Barrington Building: a modest 21 stories of neo-gothic limestone,
architectural giant of its day, stubbornly holdings its ground amidst the
steel and glass towers that grew up around it. Batman always liked the
Barrington. It had character. Even if its gargoyles were too
recessed to accept the batline and even if its patinated bell tower was too
low to make an effective lookout, he admired it as a landmark of Old Gotham.

He glanced down at it as he swung west towards Fairmont and a possible
but unlikely Hacienda location in its Lipstick Lounge. Batman didn’t
really expect to find anything. Lips, lipstick, dentures, teeth, these
were so far removed from the laughter motif that he wouldn’t normally waste
his time, but since he had no good leads to follow, he would tack two or
three of these longshot locations onto each patrol. It let him feel he
was accomplishing something, at least, instead of waiting passively for…
what was that?

Batman shifted his body, mid-swing, and released the one batline as he
fired another to slow his approach to the Barrington roof.

“Lenses engage,” he ordered. He had seen light and movement on the
eighteenth floor. Not much, but enough to justify taking a look,
particularly when he had new equipment to test. “Thermal residue scan,
engage,” he said, entering through the window closest to the movement he’d
observed. “Calibrate for last ten seconds… recalibrate and overlay
fifteen seconds… twenty… twenty-five… twenty-six…”

“Gotcha,” he thought, noting the faint echo of a heat bloom. More
interested for the moment in mastering his new crimefighting tool, he
continued to increase the temporal range of the scanners. Noting the
intensity and movement of the heat blooms as he counted up to thirty
seconds, to forty-five, to sixty seconds in the past, he was developing an
understanding for the sensor and how it displayed. In the future, he
would be able to instantly assess if an intruder passed through seconds or
minutes before.

And the tactical cost was minimal. To gain that future advantage,
he’d given this particular intruder a few extra minutes to proceed with his
crime unaccosted, but Batman knew that Ederline Inc. had the only safe
worth opening in this building and it would take a typical thief this long
to reach the door and unpack his tools.

At least that was his theory until he reached the outer office and heard
an odd rhythmic whirr coming from behind the door. Prudence demanded
finding out what the noise was before entering. Safecrackers sometimes
used explosives, and they didn’t always take the precautions that they
should. Rather than bursting through the door as originally planned,
Batman moved silently to the window… He inched along the ample ledge that
made old buildings like this so accommodating to the modern crimefighter…
and then… batarang in hand… he peered through the window to the inner office
to see…

Catwoman sitting at the desk, on an angle in the high-backed executive
chair, her right elbow propped on the headrest, her own head resting on the
her hand in a posture of infinite boredom. With her left hand, she
listlessly spun the dial on the open safe door.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded, crawling through the
window without any of the theatrics another burglar would merit.

“There you are,” she practically yawned. “Took your sweet time.
What the hell were you doing out there?”

“We need to talk,” she said, shifting as quickly as any cat from languid
boredom to crisp, all-business efficiency.

“You have a comlink,” he said severely.

“Didn’t feel like using it. If I said ‘meet me on the Moxton roof
in five minutes,’ you’d say what? ‘Is it important?’ or ‘What’s it
about?’ or ‘Can it wait ‘til I’m done tying the Triads in a knot?’ I
figured this way, if you were free you’d drop in, and if you were busy you’d
keep going. Either way I don’t have to get into the whole thing on the
OraCom.”

This was the nightmare: feline logic meets Bat Mantle. He wanted
Catwoman to become his partner, he wanted her to share in his mission—he did
not want her inserting feline logic into the process.

“Fine, Moxton roof, five minutes,” he said, since there was no point in
prolonging an inquiry once feline logic had entered the conversation.
Her reasons made sense to her, and she didn’t care if anyone else saw it
that way or not.

When he reached the Moxton roof, however, she was uncharacteristically
hesitant.

“Well?” he prompted.

“I’ve got the break you’ve been looking for,” she said tentatively.
“It’d be nice if you could embrace that part and not get how you get.”

“More specifics and we’ll see,” he said grimly.

“I know where Joker is—or at least, I know the Hacienda he’s calling home
at the moment. Harley asked me to come over in the morning.”

I was expecting the kneejerk: “No, absolutely not, the Bat has spoken,
grunt.” Instead, I got to see that incredible mind go to work.
Those eyes flickering ever so slightly, sifting through every conceivable
possibility with all that strategic awareness. That mind that authored
protocols that could bring down the Justice League, it was churning,
churning… it gave me such a rush, I could have torn off the costumes and
done him right there.

“No,” he said finally. “There’s no way to use it.”

“Let’s not be defeatist about this. There’s always a way. No
matter how many cameras or motion detectors they put up, no matter how many
armed guards and biometric scanners and inches of reinforced titanium, there
is always a way.”

“This isn’t a vault,” he said (with that typical crimefighter lack of
imagination).

“Sure it is. It’s problem-solving. Getting into a vault is
nothing but problem solving.”

He had this scowl, like in the old days when he thought I wasn’t getting
it (stealing is illegal) when in fact he was the one missing the salient
point (I didn’t care).

It was frustrating. He is SO SMART except for that big blockage of
crimefighter dumb sitting right smack in the middle of it.

“Look, I know you can’t go plowing in there tonight when Harley just gave
me the address, but tomorrow’s a whole new story…

I really felt if I could just break through that stiff, inflexible prig
part of his psyche…

“I mean, we’re sharing a roof right now, right? Look at you,
standing there doing the whole ‘I’m Batman.’ Cape, bat on the chest,
acid indigestion look on your face…” I stepped closer (which is really
the only way to short circuit the inflexible prig in my experience) and let
a clawtip trace the bottom of the emblem batwing as I said “Who’s to say
you’re not slipping a tracker on me right now… You could... put a hand
anywhere, and I doubt I’d notice when I’m so preoccupied by your—”

“Enough!”

Typical pushback. Literally. It broke my heart the first time
he did it, but now that I know what it means, I rather like it.

“See, right there,” I smiled. “Mission accomplished. I’m sure
I’m wearing some terribly clever, obscenely expensive piece of undetectable
bat-tech now, something you can use to follow me tomorrow when I meet the
tassel twit, and then once I’ve left—”

“No. Selina, this is not a conversation. You are not
accepting any invitations to a Hacienda, not when he’s ‘test-driving’ other
Rogues’ themes. Not when the Cheshire Cat is nothing but a disembodied
SMILE. I don’t care what I said, I don’t care what I promised.
You’re not going. This is not negotiable.”

Remember when I talked about that fine strategic mind of his?
Scratch all that. Because there wasn’t a worse thing the mind that
authored protocols could have said, and if he was half the strategic genius
he’s said to be, he would have known that. I’ve got a kneejerk of my
own: when a stiff-necked crimefighter tries to lay down the law with me,
that law must be picked up, batted around until the stitches break apart and
all the catnip and stuffing starts spilling out the seams, and then the
whole mess laid at his feet like a mostly-dead chipmunk.

“…”

“…”

The Cheshire Cat really hadn’t occurred to me, but now, thanks to Captain
Thou-Shalt-Not, I was honor-bound to go to the Hacienda tomorrow and see
what Harley wanted.

“I’ll be careful,” I said, thinking of that classic John Tenniel wood
engraving with the Cheshire Cat’s head floating without a body over the King
and Queen of Hearts.

“No, Selina. You can’t do it. I won’t have it.”

“Bruce,” I whispered, “What happened to ‘we don’t put the rules in a
drawer because it’s Joker?’”

“What happened to you not caring what
the rules are in the first place? Selina, you can’t do this. It
is too dangerous.”

“…”

It’s a paradox that being independent
sometimes means you get backed into doing things you don’t really want to.
Now that he’d put that damn Cheshire Cat image in my brain, I didn’t
particularly want to go to the Hacienda. But I absolutely could
not let Batman forbid it like he’s my lord and master.

“What if you met her somewhere else,” he began, and I leaned forward.
If he actually had a way out of this tangle, I would overlook that the fact
that Bat-prick was getting his way. “Somewhere near this Hacienda but
public. I can secure the location beforehand, keep an eye on you, know
you’re safe…”

“And then follow her home,” I murmured. “That’ll work.”

“It should. But when Joker is involved, no matter how sound the
plan, expect the unexpected.”

♫- BUMP bump-a-dum ba-DUM… ♫

Okay, now Harley was really worried.

♫- BUMP bump-a-dum ba-dum… ♫

Talking to the plants was bad enough.

♫- The minute you sprout through the dirt, I can see you are a
flower of distinction, a real acid-squirter. ♫

Now he was singing them show tunes.

♫- So flowry, leaves so lean. Say wouldn’t ya like to know
what made my hair just as green? ♫

Puddin’s way of just talking to the
plants—all “Daddy” this and “Daddy” that—seemed to be… well, she didn’t like
to think of it this way, but it was almost like he was mocking Red.

♫- Do ya wanna have fun? Fun? Fun? How about a
few laughs? Laughs? Laughs? ♫

Which would go over even worse than the implication that Puddin’ could do
her theme better than she did.

♫- Hey, big Joker… ♫

Red could be a bit much when she got to calling the plants her babies and
all that.

♫- Hey, big Joker… ♫

But she never called herself “Mummy” when she talked to them.

♫- HEY BIG JOKER! ♫

And she certainly never sang to them.

♫-Pourrrrrrrr a little water on me. ♫

It was agreed that Selina wouldn’t wear a comlink. Harley alone was
not a concern, but if she wasn’t truly alone, if she was fronting for Joker,
there were too many variables to consider. Joker had made alliances
with Luthor, Brainiac, and countless other high-tech villains in the past.
If this was a Joker operation rather than a simple meeting with Harley, the
risk of a link being scanned for and discovered was simply too great, given
the negligible benefits.

So Batman could only watch the proceedings from a discreet distance.
Selina had picked an upscale midtown chocolate shop and café for the
meeting, and Matches Malone was deemed too “scruffy” for the surroundings.
He’d assumed a blander, less conspicuous disguise, which still left him
dissatisfied when he actually got to the location. There were no men
in the shop, not one. He felt out of place, and he knew that feeling
conspicuous in his surroundings was even more dangerous than looking it.
So he’d simply bought a paper and a chocolate bar and gone across the street
to wait for a bus.

He sat at the bus stop reading his paper, saw Selina’s approach, saw her
note his new location, and saw her go inside. Through the window, he
saw her approach the counter, place an order, and take it to a table where
he had an excellent view (Good Kitty). Then he saw Harley arrive,
and—to the extent that he could find anything connected to Joker amusing—he
was mildly amused to see Harley had taken none of the pains he had with a
disguise. “Conspicuous” didn’t begin to cover it.
Chocolate-colored fedora and trench coat, dark glasses, and red shoes with a
black and white harlequin-patterned heel. Only Harley Quinn…

After almost half an hour of chit-chat, both women stood, Selina paid the
check and they left together. They walked side by side to the corner,
and Bruce felt his insides churn at the nightmare scenario that presented
itself: Harley must have extended an invitation to go back to the Hacienda,
and for reasons defying understanding, Selina had accepted.

Feline logic! Whatever incomprehensibly dangerous thing she was
attempting, that was going to be her explanation for it. Feline logic.
Feline logic tainting the mission. Feline logic ensnaring the Bat
mantle. This was so unspeakably unacceptable—

Bruce swallowed hard, willed his heartbeat back to a normal rhythm, and
followed Harley home as planned. He couldn’t risk a cell call to
Selina while he was tailing Harley, so he was unable to debrief her for over
an hour. He was pleased, however, to find her waiting in the satellite
cave instead of in the penthouse.

“We did it again,” she said with a grim scowl that seemed completely out
of place on her lovely features, but which reminded Bruce of himself.
“We scared ourselves silly because it was Joker. And we did it to
ourselves. Ha. Ha. Ha.” After the desert-dry
delivery, she broke into an eerily hyper-wide smile that made Bruce’s blood
run cold.

“Please don’t do that,” he graveled.

“His Mad Hatter scheme has nothing to do with the Cheshire Cat, Bruce.
Nothing at all. Know what he’s planning for Jervis? Beer hats.”

Batman had logged more man-hours analyzing Joker’s pathology than anyone
alive, but no amount of experience ever prepared you for the next insanity.
In the time it took him to process the syllables (and prevent his mouth from
dropping open), Selina went on:

“That’s his Mad Hatter scheme? Just hats? No playing cards,
no Cheshire grin?”

“Don’t get too excited, Handsome. It’s still plenty Joker-sick.
You know how the typical beer hat works, right? Like a baseball helmet
with a container on each side, with drinking tubes leading down.
Jack’s idea is to lock the hat onto someone’s heads, basically. Fill
the containers with a binary explosive: stuff that’s inert separately but
mixed ‘em together, big boom. He feeds those tubes down into a bladder
where the chemicals will come into contact if they’re released, and of
course, guess who’s holding the remote control.”

“Like strapping a hostage with explosives to make them do what their
captors demand.”

“Right. Not the regular type of Mad Hatter mind control, but he’d
be making people do what he says… with hats. Mount a little camera on
the helmet, earpiece to give the orders. ‘Now go and pants that bank
manager, hahaha.’”

“I asked you to please not do that.”

“Well anyway, that’s the Mad Hatter scheme, when and if he gets there.
You know she didn’t call me to rat him out on Jervis.”

“No… What’s he going to do to Ivy?”

“Piss her off.”

“That’s a given. Did Quinn have any specifics?”

“Not the ones you want, not the Who-What-When-Where for what happens
next. She was specific enough about her own fears though. Ivy
loathes Joker, everybody knows that. Joker starts picking on the
plants, Pammy’s going to go after him and Harley gets caught in the middle.
Ivy kills Joker or Joker kills Ivy, or one of them misses and hits her.
There’s no way to spin it that doesn’t end catastrophically bad for
Harley—and yes, before you say it, it’s all bad for Gotham too, but these
are Harley’s priorities we’re talking about.”

“Noted. Unfortunately, without specifics, knowing he’s taken up
Ivy’s theme isn’t enough. Particularly if Cobblepot’s information is
correct and he’s still planning something with birds.”

“You dismissed that idea. You said he probably got bored with Ozzy
or that he just forgot about it.”

“Yes, but now he has a detailed Mad Hatter crime in development when he’s
superficially moved on to Ivy. There’s mounting evidence that he could
act on anyone’s theme at any time, or even mix and match.”

“Mix… and match?” Selina said, blanching with horror.

It was a beautiful day at the Gotham
Botanical Gardens. A cloudless blue sky looked down on the
preparations for the 103rd Annual Orchid Show. A cloudless
blue sky that assured all who were planning to attend that they could don
their prettiest flowered hats and leave their umbrellas at home.

The Grenvilles were attending, of
course, Eleanor Grenville having founded the first Gotham Orchid Society
back in 1893 and co-sponsoring the first show with the Van Geissen Garden
Club several years later. The Ashton-Larrabys would be attending as
well, since Randolph Larraby was exhibiting—in theory. All he’d really
done was admire some orchids at a farmer’s market in Winter Park, Florida
when he was passing through on a business trip five years ago. He’d
chatted with the fellow running the stall, not even about orchids but about
golf courses in the area, and they played a few rounds during the course of
his stay and exchanged addresses at the end of it. When he got back to
Gotham, Randolph sent the guy a postcard with a picture of the famous 14th
Green at Bristol Country Club, and his new acquaintance wrote back.
He’d sent a postcard from his own business, picturing a prize orchid.
Gladys saw it, and when Randolph told her the story, she zeroed in on the
orchid. All of a sudden he had a passionate interest in horticulture
whether he wanted to or not.

Gladys was holding court at the
display of his prize cattleya citrine, explaining that it
might have been “dreadfully recherché” for a quickrich industrialist
to be breeding orchids back when it was the Fords and Morgans trying to rub
elbows with the Waynes and the Vanderbilts, but today with “all these new
internet people” arriving on the scene, an old-fashioned industrialist was
practically an aristocrat by compar…

Her voice faded into the burr of a dozen others, and Randolph was free to
wander.

It was the worst possible time for a Justice League alert. With
Joker free and liable to strike at any moment... Gotham came first for
Batman, Clark knew that more than anyone and he also knew that Joker was
free, which meant that he fully understood what he was asking.

Bruce had rubbed his eyes for a moment when the signal came in… If West
and O’Brien could handle it alone, Clark wouldn’t be asking. He
forwarded the event calendar to Oracle and told her to pinpoint the five
most probable targets for Mad Hatter, Poison Ivy, Penguin, Two-Face,
Scarecrow and Riddler crimes, and then to assign Nightwing, Robin, Batgirl,
Huntress and Catwoman to keep an eye on them. He would monitor the
newsfeeds and the Oracom if his circumstances permitted, and with any luck,
he would be back in two or three hours.

By a fantastic coincidence, Randolph Larraby’s casual wanderings seemed
to be steering him straight towards the Persephone Pavilion, the one spot on
the grounds where there was not a flower to be seen—but where he could get a
drink.

He passed one other truant as he went, standing there under a clear blue
sky with the only umbrella in sight. White gloves too, which made
Randolph walk a little faster. The stranger might not be fluttering
around the brassavolas, but white gloves argued that he was more Gladys’s
type of exhibitor than Randolph’s. He kept walking… then felt a slight
pang as he passed the fellow and glimpsed his pale skin. A skin
condition would explain the umbrella and the gloves, and the only reason
somebody hypersensitive to the sun would come to an event like this is if he
was a fellow drag-along like Randolph. He turned back to extend an
olive branch.

“Join me for a drink in the pavilion?” he asked.

“No, I don’t think so,” a vaguely familiar voice replied, pressing a
button in the umbrella handle… “You shouldn’t either.” …and a
squeal from the speaker over the Persephone Pavilion announced the garden PA
system was warming up.

Music followed, a few wispy strings Randolph felt he should know—which
then snapped into recognition when the brass kicked in. The Gotham
Opera, Wagner, the Ride of the Valkyries.

“Don’t want to miss the fun” was as much as Randolph heard before the
first splat. He foolishly looked up, glimpsing a virtual cloud of
birds approaching before an eyeful of foul-smelling glop blotted out the
sight.

Randolph staggered back and nearly fell down as another splat and another
landed on his clothes. Screaming began in the distance, coming from
the main rows of exhibits, then another SPLAT—what the hell was that, a
pigeon? SPLAT! SPLAT-SPLAT-SPLAT! and he was done trying to
figure out what was happening.

“FLY, MY WELL-FED PRETTIES, FLY!” he heard in the distance as he began to
run blindly for the shelter of the pavilion. And finally, the
trademark “HAHAHAHAHAAAA” erased any doubt as to who the pale stranger might
be and why that voice was so hauntingly familiar.

The transporter in the satellite cave was closer to the Botanical Gardens
than the one at the manor, and Selina was waiting patiently when Batman
returned. Seeing nothing beyond a missing cape and some scorch marks
on his boot, she launched into her prepared speech:

“We knew Ivy was a possibility. Explain to me why nobody was
watching the orchid show.”

“Because we weren’t, Bruce. I was watching Robinson Park, between
the zoo and the aviary, that seemed the most likely spot for an Ivy-hybrid
crime. Robin was on the west side, keeping an eye on the Hudson campus
for the Scarecrow angle, but near enough to Riverside Park if anything
turned up there. Cassie was downtown for some Jervis targets but near
the flower market. We covered as much as we could based on what we
knew.”

“What about Nightwing and Huntress?”

“What does it matter? None of us had a crystal ball. It happened.”

“Yes, when I wasn’t here.”

“Well, that was bad luck.”

“Bad luck?! It was—“

“You know, like when the delivery guy knocks on the door three hours
late, at the exact moment when you finally gave in and ran to the bathroom.
That’s just the way things work sometimes...”

Despite being a man who had a butler his whole life to answer a knocking
door, Bruce conceded the point... if only to get back to the real
issue.

“No well-laid plan can be derailed by ‘luck,’ there has to be a
contingency—”

“And we had one. That’s why Nightwing was in the helicopter and
Huntress was in the Batboat. So if he hit somewhere we didn’t expect,
we could get there fast. With the open space of the park, he could
land and pick me up. We couldn’t get to the kids, so ‘Wing and I went
in alone.”

“After the fact! Once Joker was already attacking civilians.
Because no one thought enough ahead that a flower show might be a
prime target—”

“Including you, Bruce.”
There was a strange intensity in her response that caught him off-guard.
“You’d been here just sixty minutes before this went down, and this flower
show didn’t spring up at the last minute. Hell, we both got an
invitation to the damn thing, it’s sitting on the mantel right now.
It wasn’t on your radar either. We missed it—we ALL
missed it. But ‘Wing and I adapted and were able to get there in
time.”

Bruce stared at her a moment: the
determined glare, the set jaw, and (worst of all) the flat out non-feline
logic of it. Had they been discussing anything but Joker-details,
he could have kissed her right there on the transport pad.

“What exactly did he do? After what I heard on the com, after
driving everybody inside to the ‘bird cage’ he had waiting for them.
You said ‘that’s when he really got going with the Ivy thing.’”

“Yeah,” Selina said meekly. “That’s why I want you to remember that
I love you. And even when we were enemies, I had a thing for you.
I hate, loathe, and despise him, everything he’s ever done and everything he
stands for.”

“Selina—”

“So if just this once, I think there was a certain… poetry in what he
did, don’t hate me.”

“POETRY?!”

“Sublime, inspired, insightful poetry—”

“Selina—”

“Such as makes the angels weep, yes. Smiling Jack nailed it.”

“What. Did. He. Do?” Batman asked through clenched
teeth.

“Well first, he railed against the hostages for enslaving the flowers and
pimping the flowers, exploiting the flowers, degrading the flowers… You get
the idea, you’ve heard it enough times when she gets going.”

Batman grunted, and Selina continued.

“So after that spot-on imitation, he noticed the paperwork: check-in
forms, posters advertising the orchid show, signs with the admission price,
that kind thing. None of the actual orchids in the show were dead, but
all this paper meant dead trees, so they had a moment of silence, out of
respect. At this point, I’d gotten the back of the cage open and was
sneaking a few people out that way while Nightwing came in through the top.
Meanwhile, for the moment of silence, Joker put on this green boxing glove
and raised a gloved fist in the air.” Selina demonstrated the move
soberly and then added the unnecessary explanation “Plant Power.”

Batman shook his head.

“After that, ‘Wing cut his hole through the top of the cage and crashed
in. Joker didn’t seem surprised, until he saw it wasn’t you.
You’re the one he wanted.”

“Of course.”

“And that’s where the poetry comes in. Other than the plants, what
would you say is Ivy’s defining characteristic?”

Batman scowled for a moment, then said “Seduction is the obvious answer,
but the prospect of Joker going down that road is not something you would
describe as ‘poetic.’”

“No,” Selina smiled. “He observed that, stripped of all the
bullshit, Pammy does the same thing as Scarecrow: they both rely on
chemicals to achieve a desired effect that neither one can pull off very
well on their own.”

“No,” Batman breathed, his mind leaping to the logical extension of the
premise. “Is Dick alright? I know you said everyone was, but if
he inhaled any of the SmileX at all, or—”

“He’s fine, Bruce. He did snort a little—that’s how Joker got
away—but ‘Wing popped the antidote, just like you taught him. Alfred’s
already taken a blood sample, everyone’s on the SOP… How did you
know?”

“About the SmileX? It’s ‘elementary.’ Joker’s take on a theme
he describes as ‘doing with chemicals what you’re not too successful at
otherwise,’ and you said he was expecting me. What would Joker see as
a worthy aim that he could achieve with chemicals and not any other way?”

“Making Batman laugh.”

“…hundred and sixty-one days since the former president declared all
life on this planet would be extinguished by a Kryptonite meteor the size of
Brazil. I’m Keith Olbermann. Good night and good luck.”

Poison Ivy switched off the television, her hand shaking.

He… he… JOKER! He… Orchids… the most lustrous and beautiful of her
babies… Dizzy… Breathing… or not breathing… the
harder she breathed, the less air she seemed to have… The Orchid Society…
It was the one place humanity actually behaved properly towards plants,
cosseting them and pampering them. The orchids were revered and
worshiped as nature intended at an orchid show… How could he… he…

Without being entirely sure how she
got there, Ivy found herself on the floor, looking up at the ceiling.
Her tailbone hurt and so did her head. As the seconds passed, she
realized she’d fainted. Then the reality flooded in: she’d fainted
because she hyperventilated because she’d seen that news report where JOKER,
the obscenity of obscenities, the absolute worst specimen of the bestial
human male, had gone to a FLOWER SHOW and attacked it, ranting about its
crimes against vegetation!

Now, admittedly, Ivy had a few quibbles with orchid enthusiasts.
They created a demand for increasingly—JOKER! JOKER AND HER ORCHIDS!

Orchid societies… demand for exotic blossoms… That led to higher prices…
which led vile, greedy, smelly men to go tramping into the rainforests to
obtain them. They were careful enough to bring the prized orchids back
alive, but they always managed to kill other flora as they went…

Ivy climbed dizzily to her feet…

That general objection aside, she had issues with the Gotham Orchid
Society as well. For one thing, there was that—OH WHAT DID IT MATTER?
JOKER! JOKER AND THE FLOWERS!! JOKER GETTING HIS DISGUSTING
LAUGHING HYENA SPITTLE ALL OVER HER PRECIOUS FLOWERS!!!

She threw a planter into the television set, overturned a table, and
hurled a bag of potting soil into a row of tulip bulbs she had only planted
yesterday. She apologized at once, but the little mounds of dirt
seemed to look up at her with an attitude that was not at all forgiving.

Again, she apologized. Again, she reminded herself to breathe.

“They call their refreshments tent the Persephone Pavilion,” she told the
rows of dirt contemptuously. “The only reason for anyone at a flower
show to come up with a name like that is if they have a passing acquaintance
with Greek mythology, right? Persephone was the Spring, Persephone was the
rapturous flowering of nature’s munificent bounty.”

She righted the table and began picking up shards of terra cotta.

“Persephone’s story is basically ‘why we have winter,’” she told the
nearest fichus. “Winter as in the time of year when all the flowers
DIE!”

She threw one of the shards at the television, and again she
apologized—this time to the iris whose planter it was to have been.

“The Persephone myth is the first horror story. Dead plants and
patriarchy. Persephone, goddess of green, is the ultimate victim.
Forced to stay in the netherworld, away from the nourishing sunlight, and
all because of the machinations of a so-called husband who KIDNAPPED HER,
and because while she tried really hard, she ATE something. Of all the
idiotic fine print… specifically the seeds of a FRUIT, speaking of sick
jokes…”

That word “jokes” brought it all back again, and Ivy felt her fingers
grow cold and her cheeks burn with rage.

Jokes.

Joker.

Regardless of her objection to the Gotham Orchid Society and their
failure to change the name of that pavilion despite her six letters
detailing its ideological implications, she would never, ever ATTACK an
actual church of flowers right in the middle of their worship. The
fact that that, that, that, that, that… CLOWN took it upon himself to turn
his sick perversities on PLANT PEOPLE.

That was it, the last straw. Something snapped deep inside of her
brain and everything suddenly became frighteningly still. She stood
in the center of the room, her eyes internally blinded by white hot rage.

The flowers in the room began to quiver with intensity, and then, slowly,
they began to sway back and forth, as if blown by a gentle, non-existent
breeze. Large vines and roots suddenly punched up through the floor
and started slithering and curling around her feet, splaying out across the
floor, up the walls and over the ceiling. They writhed and undulated
like a pit of vipers as they encased the room.

In the center of it all, Ivy stood perfectly still, save for the rhythmic
heaving of her chest as she breathed in and out, slowly, methodically.
In that one instant, everything had snapped into focus—a crystal clarity
that shone with a brilliance that drowned out even the blinding rage.
And in the heart of that clarity, three simple words glittered like jewels: